3 ms·
Some of this might have been covered in the article. One thing I don't think they mention is that big off-road tires are usually a bad idea on sand. You are be
by joshocar 6y ago
Some of this might have been covered in the article.
One thing I don't think they mention is that big off-road tires are usually a bad idea on sand. You are better off with summer tires that have very little tread. Tread doesn't do anything for traction and just makes you bury your tires faster.
Having lots of clearance is important. The second you bottom out you are screwed.
These two things can also go against each other, so it's a balance. If you have a truck with good clearance already go with the road tires.
It's not a good idea to go on sand with a vehicle that has electronic stability control or any type of breaking based traction control. You will burn the hell out of your breaks on sand. You really need 4WD with locking differentials. This is true in general for off-roading.
You can get out of a partial bury by rocking the vehicle backwards and forwards. Add some gas to rock a little bit without spinning the tires, release and let the vehicle rock back the other way, on the return swing add a little more gas, keep building the momentum until you get out.
Learn to feel for tire spins. Once you start to feel a spin get off the gas immediately. I can't describe how it feels, but you can get a sense for it.
Source: Grew up driving and camping on the beaches of New England.
- notional 6y agoThis sounds like what I would recommend for winter driving as well (other than the braking, the electronics do a good job in the snow).
- joshocar 6y agoIt's similar to winter driving in some ways, but different in others. For example, you don't have to worry about burrying your wheels in winter driving and tread can make a big difference; summer tires are awful in snow. I drove a car with bald tires once in the snow and it terrifying trying to go up or down hills.
- olyjohn 6y agoAnecdotally, I was out at the beach a couple years ago for 4th of July. This brings out every huge truck in the area. Half the fun is watching them all get stuck. At one point, there were about 5-6 huge bro-dozer trucks stuck out in this super soft sandy area. Some guy with a lowered 4wd Tahoe on some big chrome rims with super wide, low profile street tires decides to drive into that same area. His truck just floated over the sand, right past all these guys with their expensive mud terrain tires. After he drove through and embarrassed everybody else, he turned around and drove through again, then stopped in the sand multiple times, and kept going. It was very satisfying to watch. But really kinda proved that the big blocky tires, aren't the best for sand. And a lift kit won't do anything if your tires just dig themselves in.
- birdyrooster 6y agoI hear letting the air out of your tires can help increase surface area
- yencabulator 6y agoIf you have rugged off-road tires and you sort of know what you're doing (know how low you can go, can measure PSI, etc): yes. If you have factory highway tires in your average passenger car, beware, you're pretty likely to tear a sidewall.
- joshocar 6y agoHighway tires are fine to lower the pressure on.
- yencabulator 6y agoAll tires are fine to lower the pressure on, to a point where the sidewalls don't yet start bending and twisting. Factory (= cheap) highway tires have weak sidewalls, so if you drop PSI too low they'll tear the sidewall pretty easily, or slip off the wheel. Off-road tires have stronger sidewalls. Many American car owners have never even put on a spare tire. Telling that crowd to start lowering their tire pressure is a recipe for damaged tires.
- joshocar 6y agoI would not recommend someone who can't change a tire drive on sand. Most of the time you are going to be driving a truck if you want to go on sand, which will have truck highway tires and can handle lower pressures just fine. We regularly run down at 17-18psi with standard truck highway tires when on sand.
- yencabulator 6y ago> Tread doesn't do anything for traction and just makes you bury your tires faster. Large textured tread is primarily about mud. When the size of the "lug" is large enough, it ejects the mud up & back, leaving the tread free to grip again. Without these, in the mud your tires become big smooth balloons with no grip. Big tires are primarily about climbing obstacles. Loose sand rarely is a tall obstacle ;-) One advantage large tires can have in the sand is that when you air them down, the surface area gets much larger, and that can keep you "afloat" on top of the sand better.
- joshocar 6y agoSpecifically, I was talking about large tree on sand there, but I wasn't very clear about that with how I wrote it.
- yencabulator 6y agoI actually understood that -- I just wanted to point out that large tread pattern is not just a "cool look".